What strikes me about Wal-Mart is its growth over the past four decades. It's amazing how big the company has become since it opened. In 2004 it had nearly 5,000 stores worldwide with profits of $9 billion. It is impressive that its low pricing strategy has not been replicated by so many companies. Wal-Mart also moved into the foreign market and performed very well. It has over 1,000 different foreign locations in nine different countries as of 2004. There aren't many things that small about Wal-Mart. Their strategy is one of the best of any industry. Its international expansion continues to grow and it sells the goods of ten stores together. Wal-Mart has a great relationship with its suppliers and gets their lowest prices. The most impressive aspect of Wal-Mart is its customer service. Its employees are very helpful and knowledgeable about where they work. As previously stated, Wal-Mart's low everyday prices, large selection, large percentage of brand-name merchandise, customer-oriented store environment, and low operating costs have much to do with its success over the past 20 years . In addition to this, Wal-Mart also places a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, disciplined expansion into new geographic markets, and, in many cases, using acquisitions to enter foreign markets. Wal-Mart did not use much of its revenue on advertising. It relied primarily on word-of-mouth advertising to spread its marketing message. “Wal-Mart has been unusually active in testing and experimenting with new merchandising techniques.” Founder Sam Walton imitated other companies' good ideas and improved them. He would find what worked best, ... middle of paper ... ll. A company can find itself in great difficulty when management's attention is diverted from planning for the future to solving major internal problems. The recommendations to Wal-Mart are only to continue the good work they are doing. Wal-Mart is great at what they do. It is a best cost provider and has grown into a large company. Wal-Mart has expanded into large areas and has a strong strategy to drive its success. The company must continue to develop relationships with suppliers so they can offer an even more diverse product line at the best price. Additionally, increased training efforts could help reduce Wal-Mart's turnover rate. Reducing this rate will reduce the cost of training and help customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. This allows Wal-Mart to increase profits, as well as recruit better employees and increase customer traffic in the store.